The Lesson
by Ham Atom
Summary: After everything that happened, Navarre would have thought settling down with his beloved and their young friend would be easy. At some point he must realize he's not suited for optimism. A post-movie story of family, adoption, guilt, redemption, danger, trials, and love.
1. The Fever

A/N: If you're looking for something that is true-to-period, this is not for you. At all. I don't do nearly enough research to write well for something set in the time of _Ladyhawke_ (medieval France). So...I guess this is me disclaiming..._myself. _Heh. But if you're looking for a story about family and friendship with these characters I have frankly come to _adore_, well...this is the best I got. : )

This story starts just a few weeks after the curse is lifted and the movie ends.

Oh, hey, and I did do enough research to find out that Matthew Broderick was like twenty-three years old when he did this movie. Yeah. Mouse is definitely not twenty three here. He's probably fifteen or sixteen maybe. I can't be sorry about that. After all, Matthew Broderick did _Ferris Bueller_ a year or two after this movie I think, and he was playing a seventeen or eighteen year old then. So. I feel pretty justified in my mistake, lol.

* * *

"Phillipe Gaston!" The angry, scolding shout startled him thoroughly, nearly tipping the ladder he was on, and he watched in a helpless, fascinated sort of horror as the vase he'd been trying to reach around on the highest shelf plummeted to a sure and certain…_Crash!_ Broken pieces of porcelain exploded outward, tinkering across the stone floor of the library in no doubt very _expensive_ shards.

Nothing else in the room moved for a moment. Then Phillipe Gaston, better known as The Mouse had to blink. "I'm sorry! I'm so very sorry!" And he was climbing down the ladder with frantic feet.

"Don't move!" the man thundered. "Don't you dare move! You stay right where you are!" Etienne Navarre may have been the _former_ captain of the royal guard, but he hadn't lost anything when it came to his commanding bellow. If Mouse hadn't known any better, he would've said the reverberating shout had rattled the whole room, but he couldn't be entirely convinced it wasn't just his knees shaking. He froze on the last rung of the ladder.

"I can clean it up," he babbled, blood pounding through his chest, through his head, making his vision pulse a bit. "I can replace it. Just give me a few days. I know a man in-in DeuMont who owes me a favor. At least, I think I can convince him he does. …If he doesn't remember what happened in Chaperalle." He winced. "Twice. But he didn't remember after the first time after all, and I can't imagine time has added anything to his faculties…"

"Your _feet_, you fool," Navarre interrupted, still stern and angry, though he'd lowered his voice considerably. "Do you want to end up slicing them to ribbons?"

Mouse stared uncomprehendingly.

"There's broken glassware all over the floor," the man pointed out with remarkable patience.

The boy nodded fervently, and he was breathing hard, and he could feel the heat in his face. "I'll fetch the broom…" He went to step down.

"Stop!" The sharp shout stopped him short. Navarre stood a few feet away, and the lines of anger morphed into something altogether different. "You're not listening." He sighed. It was a tired, regretful sigh that made Mouse feel guilty inside. "You," he pointed at him. "Do not move." He waited until Mouse nodded quickly and spared him one last unreadable look before he stepped from the room, purpose in his strides.

Mouse sat clumsily on the third step of the ladder, feeling the trembling of the ebbing shock and still-present fear in his limbs. "Not good, not good," he said to himself. This was bad. Navarre took his things very seriously, and very likely that vase had been some sort of heirloom like the former captain's precious sword. When Navarre had thought Mouse lost _that_ he'd shoved him and landed him in the snow, and Mouse had been sure the man was going to hit him. He swallowed. Already his body felt so heavy and achy, and this wouldn't be good, this wouldn't be good at all.

Navarre appeared a moment later with a heavy broom in his hand. Mouse stared at it. The blood drained from his face. _Well, this is it, Lord_, he thought dizzily. _I'll see you soon._ Of all the ways. Secretly he thought the vase was an ugly thing to begin with.

The man approached, and Mouse's hands tightened around the rickety frame of the ladder he was seated on, his shoulders hunching a bit in involuntary anticipation.

But Navarre stopped a little ways from him, and without hardly sparing him a glance, began sweeping up the broken pieces. Quick, no-nonsense strokes of the broom in steady, strong hands. Mouse watched, mesmerized. There was a roiling in his stomach, but he felt oddly detached from it. Any moment, those quick, strong strokes would turn to quick, strong swings. Any moment.

He wondered if he should be allowed to stay after he was left bruised and bloody. Surely he shouldn't want to. He wasn't pathetic after all. He had…standards. But what was one beating in the grand scheme? He deserved it after all. Navarre and Isabeau both were absurdly, embarrassingly kind to him most of the time. Unless this was the last straw and Navarre had simply had enough of him. Everyone had limits. There ought to be more shouting, oughtn't there? He'd have thought…

A rough, calloused hand caught him gently by the chin, and his face was turned toward blue eyes. "Did you hear me?" There was concern in the voice, and Mouse didn't understand. Come to think of it, there was that rather loud rushing sound in his ears. "I asked, 'Are you hurt anywhere?'"

Hurt? Of course he wasn't hurt yet. Had he been hit already? He hadn't felt it. Actually he felt a bit numb. He couldn't turn his face what with the large man's grip on his chin, but he turned his eyes to the heavy broom handle. It was good he felt numb, he thought.

"Mouse?" He flinched at the name. And suddenly there was real shame and guilt all welling up, and it was just an accident, and he was sorry, and it was getting harder to remember what he'd done wrong, but he thought there was disappointment in the blue eyes, and that was worse, that was worse even than the broom handle. "What's wrong?" Navarre was looking at Mouse so intently, and then his gaze was also on the broom, and he looked positively ill, and Mouse cringed. He'd done it now. He'd finally done it, and likely it had been coming for days. He waited for the grip to become crushing, for the voice to turn to steel.

"Well now," the man said softly, slowly, as though he were a frightened animal. "Let's put this away, shall we?" And he let go of Mouse's face to turn away and place the broom out of reach, out of sight, in the corner between the wall and a case that held his armor. Mouse stared at it, and then there were blue eyes in his line of sight again. They looked tired and wounded. Had Mouse done that?

He swallowed. "I'm sorry." And he just couldn't understand. He thought he was usually better at understanding than this.

The man regarded him for a moment. "How about we get you back to bed, little Mouse."

There was too much softness and gentleness and sympathy, and none of that was right, and none of it made sense. "Don't call me that," he begged and was surprised to hear his voice break a little.

"What's that?" the man asked, confused.

"You call me that when you like me," he said, and even though his head was muddled and throbbing a bit, he was positive about that. "Phillipe" was for when he was being annoying, "Phillipe Gaston" when he was in trouble. "Mouse" was for when things were happy and playful and for all-around, everyday use. And "Little Mouse" for those fond, quiet, affectionate moments when he felt safe and cared for and left to wonder very, very internally if this was perhaps what it was like to have a family.

"I like you now," the man said simply, and his hand went to Mouse's forehead, and Mouse waited. For hurt or curses or belittling or _something_. "Your fever's up again," Navarre said, dismayed.

"I'm sorry." And Mouse felt the stinging heat in his eyes, and he was sorry. He was very sorry.

A cool hand gripped the back of his neck. "For what?"

"The…the…the…" What was it? "The vase," he blurted. "And making you upset and sad. I can do better." He'd never done better, and why would these people ever want him in their home leeching their happiness? "I could…I could…" Why couldn't he think of anything? Like his thoughts were treading through mud. "I'll prove it. I promise. I'll think of something. Later. I just need…some days…"

He suddenly found himself pulled against a broad chest, and instead of blows raining down, there was a hand kneading soothingly across his heavy, aching head. That didn't make any sense, but it was better. And he just felt very upset, and it was confusing, and he didn't think it was usually this hard to not fall apart. The arm around his back squeezed him a bit. "You are a sick little Mouse, aren't you?"

Mouse nodded quietly his remorse.

There was a sigh that was a bit like quiet laughter, but somehow it sounded sad. "Come on," he said gently. "Let's get you sorted. You shouldn't even be out of bed."

A bit of adjusting, and he was pulled off the ladder, bare feet dangling above the floor, head resting securely against a steady shoulder. He felt very small and weak, and the heat in his eyes was unbearable. The world swayed a bit, and his stinging eyes closed. Next thing he knew, he was being settled under blankets, and there was a cool hand on his forehead, brushing his hair back. He opened his eyes to a stone-faced former captain fussing with his pillows. "I'll fix it," Mouse promised in a whisper.

"You've fixed quite enough, my friend," Navarre said in a rare, soft tone, brusquely thumbing away tears Mouse hadn't realized he'd cried. He thought he should be embarrassed, but he was just too tired. "And if I thought for a moment you'd remember any of this later, I'd tell you what a foolish thing you are for thinking there is a heart that beats within this household that could ever _allow_, let alone _wish_, even the slightest harm to befall the one who played such a part in restoring what we'd thought lost forever. You are infinitely more important than any vase or trinket, and I would tear down this entire fortress brick by brick if it could aid in restoring your health." He sighed and sat back in the chair by the bed, letting one hand rest lightly on Mouse's arm. "You rest now. I'll keep watch. And if you've a mind to get out of bed again to climb any more ladders, I'll break your knees."

Mouse had a difficult time sorting out all the words, but the gentle tone was soothing and sounded safe and reassuring. He thought he remembered being frightened, but he couldn't remember now what for, and whatever it was seemed silly now. He thought perhaps it was possible that Navarre wouldn't let _anything_ hurt him. He'd never thought that way before, but the man sounded very sure, so he nodded his thick head agreeably and pulled his mouth into a smile. "It was ugly anyway," he confided loftily. He remembered thinking something was ugly.

There was a low chuckle. "Go to sleep, little Mouse."

Mouse didn't usually like to comply so easily. It wasn't good to have people getting used to that sort of thing. But there was a hand stroking his hair in a soothing, repetitive motion, and there didn't seem after that to be much use fighting the sleep that so immediately called after him.


	2. The Lecture

Navarre was dozing lightly in the uncomfortable wooden chair when gentle arms wrapped around his chest. Had it been any other person, he would have reacted quite violently. But he knew these arms. He looked up into the beautiful face of his wife. "Isabeau," he whispered, and there was the smile that always rose unbidden to his lips just to say her name. During the agonizing months and years that they were separated by the Bishop's curse, he'd rarely said it. He'd lived every one of those days with a knife in his heart, and to say the name of his beloved, even to whisper it, served to twist that knife deeper.

But that was before. Before miracles and new beginnings and together and bliss. Before he awoke from his hellish nightmare and found himself living the closest a man can get to heaven this side of eternity.

His wife kissed him softly, her lips sweeter than any nectar, her smile a more enchanting sight than any he'd ever known. She came around and sat on his lap. "I missed you, my love," she said with honest cheer, and it seemed a simple thing. She had been gone for the greater part of two days, and she'd missed him. Still, he was absurdly touched. She'd gone the greater part of two years without him before. But still, time apart, even a comparatively short time was something to be _endured_. She had _missed_ him. As he had missed her.

"Oh, I missed you, Isabeau." And still, to look at her sometimes was to be entirely _happy_.

"Imperius is on his way up. He'll need to settle some things in his room, and then he'll be in." She looked down at the still figure on the bed. "How is our Mouse?" She'd been loath to leave. But there were times when, in the grips of fever-dreams, Mouse's thrashing became too much for her, and Navarre couldn't stand the thought she might be accidentally injured. Not to mention, Mouse himself would be positively mortified. So she'd gone the day's ride to fetch Imperius, and Navarre had reluctantly stayed behind.

"His fever seems to have broken an hour or so ago. His color looks much better." And the wounds on his chest were at last looking better. Navarre remembered well the shock of coming upon the boy having collapsed on the floor at the foot of the stairwell. Eight days ago now. They'd only been at Navarre's old home a few days when he'd noticed Mouse's flagging health and called him out on it. The boy had been insistent that he was fine. That it was nothing. He'd been adamant and persuasive and had deflected with quips and nonsense. So Navarre had been forced to watch from a distance, noting the increasingly pale features and the lag in that formerly irrepressible energy and the loss of weight the boy could ill afford to lose. Until Navarre had found him there, the fever raging within him turning his skin to embers, and the horror of those wounds on his chest. Wounds inflicted by the wolf.

Navarre still shuddered to think of it. The flesh around the deep scratches and teeth marks had been red and inflamed and oozing, hot to the touch. Navarre had been panic-stricken. He and Isabeau both had. It had taken all his knowledge to treat the wounds, and he'd still worried it may not be enough. He'd seen too many men, men larger and stronger than Mouse, wither and die from such sickness. There had been the few, brief, good times when Mouse could open his eyes and talk and take advantage of their fussing and protest with weak, young arrogance that it was all an overreaction. And also there had been the bad times. They could have lost him. Frightfully easily. The fear had been so deep as to awaken old nightmares, reopen old wounds.

"It wasn't you," she said softly, reading his thoughts as was her way.

He wasn't sure he could fully agree.

She pressed her point further, "He'd never have been in so much danger if only he'd told us sooner."

Navarre thought about that. He thought with weighty guilt of all the times his words had been harsh since they'd fled to his boyhood home. Even the journey to the familiar ancient stone structure had awakened old memories, resurrected old ghosts. And even with all the promise of a new life, the haunting memories of a past that tried so very hard to press in on his chest and shake his soul wore his nerves frail and sharpened his tongue. Isabeau of course could never be an acceptable vessel to hold his wrath. But how convenient a target was Mouse. He thought of how many times he'd snapped at Mouse, sighed impatience at him, ignored him. He thought of how unkind he'd been, even in his concern for the boy's health.

Mostly he thought of the round, fever-glassed eyes that looked at him in such fear so many hours earlier. Wide brown eyes and shaking hands and tightly-wound shoulders and a hundred other signs, small and large, that shouted of abuse and an accustomedness to it. The broomstick. He'd never forget the frightened, expectant gaze as the same boy who'd brazenly returned to Aquila to face his gravest fear—and only to ensure the happiness of two others—looked at that broom like he'd _known_ exactly what it was for. Not to clean up a mess. But to make one. It had taken more self control than Navarre had known he possessed to keep from grabbing the boy, shaking him, demanding _who?_ Who had taught him that lesson? Who had instilled that terrible _knowledge_? Navarre's sword hand still itched to impart to the faceless monster a lesson of his own. But in the end, the shame and guilt lay like a millstone around his own neck.

_He'd never have been in so much danger if only he'd told us sooner._ He didn't doubt the truth of those words at all.

_How could he have told me? I was too busy being a blind fool._ One didn't necessarily need the claws and teeth of a wolf to be a monster.

Fortunately Isabeau didn't see such thoughts. Her eyes were on Mouse. He looked entirely young, lying so small and still on the bed. He _was_ young. Little more than a child. Navarre knew of the scars on that small back. He'd seen them soon after all this began when he'd had to put the sick lad to bed. He hadn't told Isabeau about them. But he thought of them and could in no way fault the boy for being leery of showing any weakness. He could certainly, however, hate the circumstances. "Trust is a thing that is built over time," he said mildly. "He didn't owe it to us."

She stroked the boy's sweaty brow. "His stubbornness may yet be the death of him," she said softly, equal parts fear and fondness. She looked at Navarre, and he could imagine how weary he looked. She looked weary herself. "Or the death of us. Whichever may come first." She smiled a bit, spirited by the lack of heat emanating from their young friend's body.

Navarre smiled back at her. It seemed no matter what battlefield had lured his thoughts, a smile from her in just that way could bring him back. He looked at her with a measuring gaze. "Do you know what feature you possess that is the most beautiful?" he asked.

Isabeau blushed slightly, and her eyes rolled a bit. "I know what you will _say_," she answered.

He tilted his head. "Do you?"

"You've said it before," she pointed out.

"Have I?" It was more of a game than a question.

"_Yes_."

"Ah," he nodded thoughtfully. "Hm. I don't want to bore you. Shall I say it anyway?"

"If you must," and her smile was wide and teasing.

He looked at her. The face that drove mad a Bishop with its beauty. The flawless features that froze men in their tracks, still did so to him on occasion. And he told her simply, "Your heart." And even if the rest of it was playful, that part was raw and honest and the truest thing he knew how to say to her.

She had heard it before. And as it had been the first time, her tired eyes were warm and grateful and looked at him with such love as could not be faked, as could not be _understood_ even, by anyone who had not felt such love before. Indeed he could not have understood it if not for the fierce, unrelenting, awesome nature of the love he had for her. "I love you," she said.

"I love you," he answered. "Isabeau."

"I'd really love a nice bowl of stew. Venison if you got it." The slow, slightly slurred words brought both their attention back to the bed. "Maybe a cheese pastry. Fresh bread," he waved his fingers hazily and smacked dry lips. "Maple pie. Mm. Nothing fancy." Brown eyes blinked heavily at them.

"My little Mouse," Isabeau quietly exclaimed, rising from Navarre's lap, pushing the boy's hair back from his forehead. "How do you feel, dear heart?" she worried.

"Hello, Milady," he said slowly and smiled a tired version of the wide, all-teeth smile he usually only used when he wanted something.

That sneakily-charming smile did more to ease the lingering worry from her eyes than Navarre suspected anything else could. _And perhaps,_ he mused with a hint of pride, _that **is** what he wanted._

"Oh," she laughed. "I think for you I can see what I can scare up by way of food. Without your limitless stomach around here, we've amassed quite a surplus I think."

Another voice rumbled from the doorway. "What's all this then?" Imperius asked. The old priest stepped into the room to look at the boy.

Mouse looked up at him and smiled through some confusion. He looked pale and spent, as though he'd just run a very great distance—perhaps while being chased by someone calling for his head. Navarre reevaluated that thought. He'd _seen_ Mouse after having run a great distance while being chased by someone calling for his head. The boy had had a bit more life to him then. But the brown eyes he saw now were sparkling, even if it seemed to take a great effort to turn his head to look back and forth among the three of them.

"I was told I was needed to aid a stricken lad. This one you've got here seems to be pretty well in order." Imperius's tone was gruff as ever, and his face was filled with relief.

"Doesn't he look strong enough to wrestle mountain lions?" Navarre teased.

"Oh, aye. With one hand bound."

For his part, Mouse didn't seem to entirely follow the conversation. He shook his head. "What are you doing here, Father?"

Navarre hoped the old man wouldn't mock the boy. He didn't think Mouse was in any state to understand the gruff manner of the priest as the affection it was. He needn't have worried. "I came to look after you, my boy. You gave us all a good scare. I'd thank you kindly to refrain from any further illnesses or injuries. I, for one, am too old for the strain. My dear lady has been worried fit to faint. And this one," he clapped a large hand onto Navarre's shoulder. "I hear from a rather reliable source that he's hardly slept since any of this began."

Mouse blinked at them. "Why not?"

"Why not?" Bless that priest. "Are you daft, lad?" Imperius shook his head in exasperation as Mouse seemed to seriously consider the question. "Because he loves you, you insufferable imp," he said as though it were patently obvious. The directness even surprised Navarre. "The lot of us do."

Navarre watched Mouse's reaction to the words and may have held his breath some, and he couldn't explain the bit of uneasiness he felt. The poor boy's emotional state of late had been like a cloud on a windy day, blown to and fro by the sickness that had raged within him, leaving him exhausted and perplexed more often than not. At Imperius's words, the brow furrowed the way Navarre had oft seen it do before Mouse had something to say to contradict whatever had just been said. Lips were pressed into a thin line. And heaven help the boy, he clearly hadn't a clue how to sort out what he'd just heard from the old priest's mouth.

Isabeau rubbed his arm soothingly. "Of course we do. You are by all counts the younger brother I never had." She shook her head with teasing irony. "You poor creature." Navarre had to smirk at that. Truer words had never been spoken. The way Isabeau loved to nag and mother and tease and fuss at their little thief left no doubt she would have been a perfectly awful older sister. But Mouse took it well and appeared to love the attention himself. And for his part, he seemed to slip into the irritating younger brother role she'd created seamlessly and without even appearing to notice. "What on earth would I do without you, you silly pickpocket?"

Mouse floundered there, mouth opening and closing, and he seemed rather at a loss. A shine pooled in his eyes that was not fever. It likely wasn't fair to have such a talk here, in front of all of them, when his defenses were so low and his emotions already so near the surface. But then Isabeau and Imperius couldn't know that.

Navarre stood awkwardly. "Why don't we see about getting this young man some supper? Look at him. He's wasting away." He subtly guided Isabeau away from the bed, positioning her between Imperius and the boy faltering on the bed. He directed them both to the door. "I assume you brought those herbs you hinted at," he said to Imperius.

"Yes. And soon he will have a cup of warm, pungent, and positively ghastly tea. The best. He'll be running about, back to his usual mischief in no time," the priest declared.

"I'm sure he can't wait," Navarre said as he ushered them out. It was clear Mouse hadn't heard. Navarre turned back. For some reason, he turned back. Mouse stared at him for that moment, helpless. Navarre had found he was rather defenseless against that look. It wasn't unlike the face he'd first met. Mouse had had a sword on an arc toward his throat then, and he'd known he was about to die. How that seemed a lifetime ago. The face that had looked at him then without comprehension—eyes wide and dull and almost unseeing in the shock that he still had his head—it was eerily similar to the one that looked at him now. It was much easier to block him out when he was grinning mischief and babbling nonsense and looking for all the world like a spirited youth who knew precisely what he was doing. But the look of a helpless boy, confused and lost and out of his depths…it sparked old, protective instincts Navarre had thought long forgotten.

_You don't understand do you, little Mouse? _he thought. _You haven't the first idea what it is to be loved._ Sometimes there was nothing about the world that was fair. He smiled reassuringly, and it was a smile that took a moment to put together. "We'll be right back," he promised. "You rest and don't worry." He suddenly felt very, very tired.

He closed the door with that smile fixed in place and turned. Isabeau and Imperius were looking at him with twin expressions of empathy that brought a flood of unexpected emotion. Somehow every minute of worry and uncertainty, thinking that very likely his young friend—the one to whom he owed everything, the one who'd continued to effortlessly, accidentally wriggle under Navarre's defenses, the one he would've fallen on his sword for—would die and it would be from wounds Navarre had unknowingly inflicted in his cursed beast form. That he would die and Navarre would be left to bury him. That he would die believing he wasn't anything to anyone, and that would be all Navarre's doing, too. All of it rushed from those gazes all at once.

_He's fine. He'll be fine._ He blinked rapidly and looked away down the corridor. "What?" he asked gruffly. He turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose, walking blindly in the direction of the kitchen.

Her hands caught his arm and turned him, and she was there, in his arms, hers wrapped tight around him. "He'll be all right, Navarre," she whispered comfortingly. "It's all right."

He closed his eyes against the _tears_ that threatened to fall, and what in his life had brought him to this? Dissolving into a fit of tears like a maiden over the fear of losing one petty thief? For heaven's sake, he'd seen battles and death and blood and heartache, more than most men would ever know. He held onto Isabeau tightly, as tightly as he hung onto the moisture in his eyes. "I know." He did. It was silly to react this way. Especially now that Mouse seemed to be on the mend. "I know, darling."

_Because he loves you, you insufferable imp._ Did he? He didn't think he could. And certainly Mouse didn't think so.

Isabeau pulled back enough to lay her hand on the side of his face. He placed his over hers. "He is your brother, isn't he?" she asked, and it was hardly a question. What had she seen in his eyes? "More so than he's mine. More so than he belongs to either of us," she indicated Imperius who stood stoically back, "he is yours. The Lord brought him here for _you_." She must have had some power. Some ability to read his mind that extended to no one else. She'd already known of Élie. Navarre had told her when he knew he loved her. He'd told her so she would know she shouldn't love him back.

Élie. The blond-headed boy so full of exuberant, impetuous _life_. Until Navarre. Until a foolish dare. Until the final boyish, carefree smile. Until the nightmarish sound of ice cracking. Until a look of horror and fear and pleading. Until Navarre watched in frantic, breathless terror as his little brother disappeared. Élie had only been a bit younger than Mouse when Navarre had pulled him out of the water. Ice in his hair and clothes. Pale and blue and still. Ever still. And how hot Navarre's tears had been and were even now on the occasions he could see it, feel it in his nightmares as intensely as it was then.

There were things that could not be restored. Things that could not be undone. There were things from which Navarre could never deserve redemption.

"Phillipe reminds you of him, doesn't he?" she asked fearlessly.

They looked hardly alike. Élie's blue eyes and blonde hair against Mouse's brown. Élie had been well-fed and sturdily built compared to Mouse's half-starved, skinny frame. But there was something. And perhaps he saw things that were not there. Things like dimples when he smiled wide. Things like nervous chatter and unimpedeable humor and quiet, unexpected bravery and determination, and the wide-eyed way Navarre sometimes caught him looking at him. As though he _expected_ something of Navarre. As though Navarre were a good man. Would do the right thing. Like some sort of hero. Like someone deserving to be looked upon as such. Someone to be followed. Someone to be trusted. All those sorts of thoughts that were woefully mistaken, that he'd _proven_ untrue again and again and again. "That is an unfair thing to say," he whispered to her around a tight throat.

Mouse was not Élie. Doing right by Mouse would not undo what had happened to Élie. And if Navarre needed any more proof how unfair it was to compare the two, there was what had happened earlier this same day with the vase and the broom. Mouse had his own tragedies, his own baggage to carry. He could ill afford to take on Navarre's as well.

"Unfair to whom?" Isabeau asked. "To you or to Mouse?" She paused. "Or do you mean it is unfair to Élie?"

"Mouse is…Phillipe is not my brother." For heaven's sake, the boy was young enough to be his son. He was nearly young enough to be _Élie's_ son now if... A stabbing pain shot through his heart at the unexpected thought. Because Élie would never have a son. Because _Élie_ had been robbed of his chance to ever grow up.

"No," she said, but it didn't sound like she agreed. Her eyes were still relentlessly searching. "Do you think it is a betrayal to Élie's memory that you let in someone else? That you care for another in the same fashion that you cared for him?" Yes. No, of course not; that was absurd. But yes. "Would it have been a betrayal if your mother had had another son after him? Would loving that boy be more acceptable than loving Phillipe?"

He could say nothing.

"When we brought him here it was not as a friend, and certainly not as an employee. It was as a family. As our family. You are good with him, Navarre, better I think than any of us realize. But he's going to be very confused if you don't determine now what status he holds in your life. You can't raise and lower the walls of your heart on a whim. You can't let him in only to push him away later. That would not be for his good. Nor for yours." Her words were cautioning, never condemning, but still it raised some ire within him.

"I'd no more hurt that boy than I would my own flesh," he hissed, keeping his voice carefully quiet. "You know that."

"I know you would protect his life. There was never any doubt of that. I'm talking about the rest of him. His spirit. His soul." Her hands moved from his face to his shoulders. "He doesn't talk to me about his past. But I know a wounded creature when I see one." His face must have given something away. "He is a good pretender," she allowed. "But I've gained a certain accustomedness to dealing with someone with deep scars." She looked at him meaningfully. "At least enough to recognize it when I see it."

Navarre wouldn't have guessed he and Mouse would ever have been called similar. He felt guilty. And transparent. And suddenly very incapable. Certainly unworthy. "Would it be better for him…" he asked slowly. "Would it be better if I sent him away? With Imperius perhaps." Away. Where Navarre couldn't hurt him.

Imperius stepped up then. "Could you bear it?" he said softly in his low, gravelly voice. His gaze was unremitting as ever.

He thought of it. For one second. His answer was reflexive. Like one who pulled back his finger after foolishly sticking it on a thorn. "No."

"Then there is your answer," the old man said in an obvious tone as though he were speaking to Mouse. Isabeau stepped to the side to allow him room to clap a hand on Navarre's shoulder and grip it firmly. "The Lord knows, you've been through more heartache in your life than any man I know could have survived. Like Job of the Scriptures, everything was stripped from you. When God restored that man, He did not resurrect the children he'd lost. Job would meet them again in death, and there would be an eternity to share. But He did give Job the blessing of more children, of building a new family."

Imperius looked him dead in the eye. "Sometimes restoration does not come in the form of regaining what you've lost. Sometimes it comes in being _given the chance to build something_ _new_." He squeezed Navarre's shoulder. "But of course," he shrugged, "it is yours to do with what you will." With a pat to the shoulder, the old man sidled by, heading to the kitchen to prepare the medicinal tea he'd promised.

Isabeau looked at him, waiting. Navarre sighed. "Do you remember when we could dismiss him as a bungling drunkard?"

She smiled and kissed him soundly on the lips. "Vaguely." She stayed on the tips of her toes, her face inches from his own. "Are you all right, Navarre?" she questioned. And she always called him Navarre. Never Etienne.

"I am," he said with confidence. It took him moments more to evaluate and tentatively find that he might be right. Or nearly so. He looked back down the hallway to a closed doorway behind which lay a rather the worse for wear (former) thief. "I've been rather mercurial in my care of him, haven't I?" To put it pitifully, almost comically, mildly.

"You've had days," she told him, ever honest. "But I think he's much more confused by open affection than by a short tone or dismissal."

It could hardly have been truer. He'd seen the boy smile unflinchingly in the face of insult or even threat while a kind word or friendly hand left him awkward and quiet and unsure.

"Will you tell me what you're thinking?"

He kissed her again. "I've things to mend," he said. And it was as much as he could say. He knew what he needed to do. He feared to. But he knew.

"Trust is a thing built over time," she quoted his earlier words. "And it seems as though God has granted you that."

"Indeed." And looking into her eyes, Navarre had more reason to be grateful than any man on the Earth. He stroked a finger down her cheek, and she was still a bit dusty from the road and ever as beautiful as always. "You must be hungry from your journey. Let's pull supper together for you and our Mouse."


	3. The Graveyard

A/N: There's not much Mouse in this chap, which was difficult for me. It's pretty well Navarre-focused with some important Navarre-type issues. But he'll be back. Oh, he will be back.

* * *

The lady of the manor, such as she was, scrubbed the dishes after supper. They hadn't any servants; still they were in waiting to see if any trouble would be kicked up about the business of the dead Bishop. Such things always garnered consequences, and the reunited couple and their young thief were awaiting word from a few trusted compatriots of Navarre whether it was safe to return to Aquila.

Isabeau didn't much care either way. She would have preferred to be free of the threat of danger, but she wasn't in any hurry to return to normal either. To go on, Navarre as a captain, she as his wife, as though nothing had happened seemed…false to her. She was enjoying the time in Navarre's old boyhood home nestled into the hills, old and quaint and still strong. Not unlike the old man sitting on the stool next to her drinking from a mug.

"I can still smell that tea," Imperius grumbled. "What a wicked lot that was."

She grinned and pulled another platter from the basin. "You weren't even the one who had to drink it." It was sort of a cruel thing. They'd had to wake Mouse up to administer it. He'd called Imperius lots of half-awake, blustery, unkind things. "I believe my favorite was 'You mutton-faced, wool-headed, goose-dragon's baby.'"

The priest chortled into his ale. "He's got quite the refined tongue, hasn't he?"

"Is a goose-dragon a real term for something?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge. I believe it's safe to say that came from somewhere in the recesses of that fool head of his."

"He was not best pleased by the taste of your brew," she didn't bother to hide her smile. It was good to see that spirit in him. After the tea, Mouse had attacked his supper with gusto, rolling his eyes every time Isabeau reached over to bother his hair or tuck in a stray corner of blanket. His deep-set scowl at all things Imperius had been a delight, more so because for all the boy tried to be subtle about it, he was clearly delighted the old man had come just to see about his welfare. He'd eaten a mere third of his normal portion, but he hadn't gotten ill afterwards. He had promptly fallen asleep, however, against Imperius's shoulder.

He hadn't asked where Navarre was.

"I warned him not to smell it first," Imperius defended. "He's got to learn to listen sometime." There was a softness to his face, even in the waning light. He'd been exasperated and resigned when Mouse had fallen asleep on him. But for all his quiet-kept protests, he hadn't been in such a hurry to move the boy back down to the pillows. And even then, he'd been gentle and careful as if handling a fragile, holy relic. She watched him there in the kitchen for a bit. His relaxed posture. The tension she'd seen in him since she'd awakened with that arrow in her chest all but dissolved.

"You never belonged in that monastery," she said quietly.

Imperius looked faintly startled by the abrupt change of subject. "What's that, my dear?"

"For the last two years," she knew, "Navarre and I weren't the only ones living a wretched existence. You self-imposed a curse of your own, didn't you?"

"Well then." He eyed her for a moment. "No one's ever had to ask you to say what you mean, have they?"

"Never," she couldn't deny it.

He kept his face buried in his mug, and it was shame that pressed down on his shoulders. "What good could I deserve after having inflicted such wretched horror on two innocents?"

"You inflicted nothing. You were used. You made a mistake. If God has forgiven you, monk, how is it you have not forgiven yourself?"

"Even after forgiveness, there are still consequences."

"You've done your penance. I think it's time you lift your sentence of exile. Unless you intend to die alone in that cold, craggy old abbey. And if that is the case, I'd like to know it straight away."

Imperius glanced up at her. "Why?"

"So I can hit you over the head with something heavy and hope that some sense is knocked into your skull in the process."

He laughed out loud in surprise. "You know, I knew you _before_ you loved Navarre. I don't remember you being quite so straight and fast with your wording."

She shrugged her shoulders primly. "Marriage suits me," she sniffed with a teasing, lofty grin.

"Aye," the priest said warmly and raised his mug. "That it does, dear daughter. As it does your husband."

"He is quite a man," she said, and sometimes all it took really was to think of him, and her heart was so full she thought it would burst, and the only thing she could do was smile to herself.

"Where has he gone?"

She turned to face the old priest. "It isn't obvious?" His face said it was not. "He went to lay his fears to rest."

LADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKE

The sun set behind him as Navarre stood in front of the grave, one he had helped his father dig. Overgrown with grass, a crudely-formed, weather-beaten wooden cross as its marker. He wasn't sure entirely why he'd come. He didn't believe his brother was here. His brother was dead. In heaven doing whatever people did in heaven. If nothing else, he thought it an arrogant thing to think his brother's spirit had simply been waiting around should Navarre feel the urge to come by for a conversation. Even given the option, Élie had never been one to sit still for any length of time, and he somehow doubted that would have been tempered by death.

The only ghosts he expected lived in his memories.

It was quiet here. Only the wind through ice-frosted trees and brush and the occasional stomp or snort from Goliath, his black Friesian stallion who stood waiting in the snow several paces back. Even that all faded away as he looked at the small clearing that out of necessity had become a cemetery.

He'd been to this place when he'd buried his mother next to her younger son. It was a year after they'd lost Élie. Navarre had never said so, but he'd always suspected she'd died of grief. Élie had been her joy, and as soon as his light was snuffed out, she'd faded like a trail of smoke. His father had become a mountain after that. An impenetrable keep built of layers of rock. He'd never looked at Navarre the same since the day he'd laid his brother's small body down amidst his mother's anguished wails of sorrow. Each had been a battle axe to his already-broken soul.

The ground had been frozen. They'd dug a grave anyway. His mother cried. His father did nothing but dig. And Navarre could not bear the weight of how they looked at him after that.

"I should have protected you," he heard himself whisper. He did not believe his brother could hear him. But perhaps he needed to hear himself say the words. "I never thought…you would take me so seriously. Had I known…Had I _thought_ for a _moment_…"

His father hadn't helped him dig the grave for his mother. A year later, nearly to the day. The ground had been frozen then as well. It was twelve years after that that he heard by word of a messenger of his father's death. And he'd traveled through snow, across ice, back to the place he'd fled the moment he'd had opportunity. He'd received his sword and his inheritance. And through frozen ground he'd dug a grave for a mountain. Except when he'd looked upon the still face of his father, the man hardly looked like stone. He'd looked old. Weary. Weathered. Navarre had laid him to rest next to his wife and their child. He'd covered the place with ice and soil and stepped back to see the family he had destroyed in one moment of clumsy, childish thoughtlessness.

Navarre knelt on one knee, covered his eyes with a gloved hand as the tears fell freely. "I am not a good man," he wept quietly. Whatever he did, there would always be this place, and he had never seen a spring here. Only winter. How could a springtime ever touch this forsaken place? Always winter, always death. His sins buried in rocky, frostbitten ground.

Burying his father, he'd thought, had turned him to stone as his father had been. He'd been wrong. He hadn't been stone. He'd been ice. Because then there was Isabeau. And she with all her warmth had been enough to enact a thaw in all those frozen places in his heart he was sure had ceased to function. And then he'd lost her, too. In the winter. Only that had been partway. There had been no body to bury. Only a constant, aching, soul-shriveling hope.

In a way, he'd come to hate that hawk that traveled with him and stared at him with its sharp, beautiful, animal eyes. He'd come to hate it as much as he loved the woman trapped inside it. It was a cruel, unbearable thing, a macabre mockery to be relegated to caring for the well-being of a beast that served as a constant reminder of the one he longed to be with. He'd never thought he would survive that. And that would be his penance, the retribution he deserved for what he had done, and how much deeper the wound for that the woman he loved more than any other was made to suffer with him.

But then he'd met a quick-tongued, unexpected, slippery little escape artist, and he'd told that boy that he was meant to be Navarre's guiding angel. The key to ending the terrible purgatory in which he and his love had been trapped. And he had refused to tell that boy his secret because what an untrustworthy little urchin. And Mouse _had_ tried to escape. But only _before_ he'd known the truth. Once he'd known…once he'd known, he was all in, heart and soul, putting his very life on the line for two people he hardly knew and had no cause to care for.

And somehow, some way, when Navarre wasn't looking, he'd come to care for this little pickpocket. He'd begun to think of him, accidentally, as some sort of surrogate son, someone to guide, someone to protect and teach and care for. And then there came the fatal blow.

Navarre sometimes had nightmares. And in them he was the wolf, mindless and hungry, and it was only a miracle he'd somehow been able to retain enough control to know even in his wolf-mind that Isabeau was always to be protected, never hurt. But in one of his nightmares, he was trapped in icy waters, growing heavy as the water froze in his fur, the cold leeching his strength. And there was this tiny thing, this Mouse, flinging himself into the dangerously cold waters, wrestling wolf-Navarre haphazardly up onto the ice, to safety, with no mind to the claws and teeth that were angrily, instinctually, filleting his chest.

The dream had left him screaming.

There were too many times in the past week he had wondered about this place, this frozen graveyard, and thought with great fear what it would be if he had to dig another hole through icy ground. Whether he had it in him. And he'd been kind to the ailing Mouse, made sure his needs were taken care of, but every time he'd seen the pale, drawn face, his mind's eye had supplied a blue tinge and frozen, accusing eyes. Every time his subconscious wanted to reach out to a boy his heart had somehow adopted, his memories screamed that he was no more fit for that role than the wolf who'd carved those wounds into his chest would be. Because how could he be anything like a father when no one had ever even survived being his brother?

And then the crazy boy had climbed a ladder for reasons Navarre couldn't imagine and knocked over a vase. And then he'd looked at Navarre like he fully expected to be immediately, unreasonably, violently punished.

The vase had been his mother's, one passed down from some long-dead ancestor, and all Navarre could think of was that the fever-muddled boy seemed insistent, in his haste to avoid that punishment, to put his bare, unprotected feet down on those sharp, unforgiving shards of porcelain. All he could think about was the fear in that face. The hurt. Certain of all the wrong things and oblivious to all the right ones.

So he'd given into the impulse. He'd held him, picked him up, tucked him back into his bed. And there was confusion, and somehow, simply, trust. As though it made sense suddenly that Navarre would take care of things, that Navarre would keep him safe. He remembered seeing that sort of trust in Élie. Of course, Élie had never once thought for a moment that his older brother would ever do him harm. _Such a bright lad._

"How I loved you, little brother," he whispered. He'd never said it. He'd never been much for words, a sensibility Isabeau was methodically working to rid him of.

Even more quietly, "How I love you still." He should have treasured that trust. He should have cherished those times his brother wanted to follow him, assist him, be like him. Blue eyes and blond hair and the hint of dimples and a winsome smile, infectious laugh. A heart as big as any Navarre had ever known. And how often had he been annoyed or irritated or hadn't had the time? "I should have loved you better then."

He took a deep breath. He was unused to talking alone, listening to his own voice. Mouse, he knew, didn't need an audience in order to let loose a string of words. Navarre had come upon him more times than he could count to find the boy talking brightly to himself or to God. As though most of his thinking took place verbally. Much of the past two years Navarre had spent in silence. That time was over. It was a time for words, even if they were only ever heard by himself and the Lord. "If I could undo…" He stopped. That didn't matter. Of course if he could change things he would. But he couldn't. That was the nature of life.

He sighed. The words came haltingly. "I…will…always wish things were different. And even if it isn't fair, I want you to know…" he shook his head. "I want to say that things will be different. For him. I won't make the same mistakes. I won't…" The tears that overflowed surprised him. How many more could there be? "I will not dig another grave out of my own recklessness."

There were more words that he could not say, no matter how he tried. Words about how no one could ever replace Élie in his heart. Words about how he could never forget the little blond boy who had looked to him for guidance with so much innocent trust. Words about how that precious young soul would always be a part of who Navarre was.

He'd thought in some shielded part of his mind that caring for Mouse would be some sort of betrayal to his brother's memory. A cheap, imitation bond that was about ridding Navarre of the guilt he'd borne for so many years. It was bad enough that he'd had the audacity to love Isabeau, and wasn't the Bishop's curse proof enough that he could only bring misery? Opening his heart to a young, orphaned thief was only adding unfair, dangerous insult, and Mouse's recent brush was death sealed it. And somehow with that same mind, he'd imagined his brother would be disapproving, accusing. Because how could Navarre dare care for another when the only real track record he possessed was this string of winter graves? Wasn't being cared for by Navarre a curse and a death sentence?

But the curse had been lifted. Mouse had lived. And Isabeau was right, the only unfair thing was to jerk the boy's emotions back and forth as Navarre tried to deal with his own demons. He was finished with that now. And somehow he expected to feel the weight of invisible disapproval, but there was none.

He placed his hand on the ground he'd had to dig up so many years ago. "You would have loved them, too," he whispered finally. It was a realization and a deeply-known truth all at once. And he imagined for a moment his young brother smiling innocently at Isabeau or laughing at one of the old man's jokes or running around, getting into trouble with Mouse. He hadn't thought he had much in the way of imagination.

_Those two would have gotten along so well,_ he thought. Élie would be several years older than Mouse now. And what would Élie have taught the boy? What stories would he have told? Navarre thought of how he would go as gray as Imperius trying to keep a rein on the two of them. The thought brought an unpredicted smile to his face. It was a sad smile, but he never would have thought there would be any kind of smile in this place. How Élie would have berated him for that.

That young spirited lad would not feel betrayed by Navarre's happiness or his care of Mouse. Élie's memory would not be honored by misery. It would be honored by joy, the kind of joy that he'd advocated and insisted upon until the last day of his too-brief life.

He arose stiffly, the cold having sunk into his bones, but he felt lighter all the same. "I do not imagine I should be back anytime soon." He prayed fiercely that it would be so. He reached behind him and pulled free the old metal shovel he'd brought with him and had stuck rather forcefully into the ground upon arriving. "I think it would do me well to leave this here." He gripped it in his hands, and just with that grip there were memories of numb, bleeding hands and blisters and biting cold and wretched, guilt-laden grief. This shovel he had used to bury every member of his family. He dropped it on the empty piece of ground beside his brother's grave. Gave it up to rust and decay. "I don't want to use it," he said. "Not ever again." He'd kept it. Always expecting another tragedy. Always wanting the reminder of his failure.

Navarre brought his fingers to his lips and used them to press a kiss to the weather-beaten cross at the head of his brother's grave. He did the same with his mother's beside it, and his father's beside that. "I will never forget," he vowed. "My first family." And now, somehow this chance for a new one. "I want to be restored. I have been given this opportunity, this gift. I do not deserve it." He shook his head and thought of his Isabeau. Never could he be worthy of her. But yet she offered her love. Freely. Without reservations. What an example of mercy. Quietly he said, "That is what a gift is." Silently he thanked the Lord for unexpected gifts.

He turned from the hallowed ground and began the trek back to where Goliath waited faithfully. In reality, nothing had changed. But somehow he felt lighter. Somehow he felt…more ready. Ever since Élie, he'd been fearful of life, fearful that it would find him out, that it would take more from him. And truly in his mind, since that cold, dark day, it had never ceased to be winter. He mounted Goliath. Smiled and rubbed the horse's neck. With quiet, tentative hopefulness, he said, "I think it will be a good spring."


	4. The Odyssey

Navarre rose quietly, intending not to wake his sleeping wife. Even tired from her journey, she'd waited for him to come home. He would never ever deserve this woman.

He pulled on a thicker tunic and his boots to ward off the chill, wrapping an extra blanket around his shoulders as an added measure, and left the room before lighting a lamp. He made his quiet way to the library, something on his mind that would not let him sleep. The ladder and the shelf were as they'd been left, and in fact, the swept up porcelain still lay in a pile in the corner. He'd tend to that later. Holding up the lamp, he looked up on that top shelf. It was as he'd surmised. He climbed onto the ladder's first step, reached up and pulled the old volume off its shelf and smiled a bit. He supposed he could be wrong, but…

If it had been daylight, and the manor not so quiet, he never would have heard the small noise from the hall. As it was, it set his nerves on edge and quickened his heart. Instincts firing, Navarre dropped his blanket, set down his lamp and book, and took up the fireplace poker, thinking of assassins and soldiers loyal to an evil, dead Bishop. He turned round the door to the hallway, and only barely managed to make out the edges of a dark, creeping silhouette.

"You have one second to identify yourself," he said lowly.

He couldn't have mistaken the startled yelp for anyone else. The figure spun around, flattened against the wall, and it must have taken him a moment to place the voice. "Navarre!"

"Phillipe! Are you mad?" He caught the boy by the shaking arm and pulled him into the library.

"F-Furious," Mouse wheezed a bit from fright. "I could have...seriously injured you. Whew. One minute." He took his free hand off his heart to hold up one finger. "Hold on for one minute. Gahh." As soon as he caught his breath, he looked up scornfully. "What are you doing sneaking around in the middle of the night with a…" He looked at the poker in Navarre's right hand. And for one horribly familiar moment, he froze. Then he seemed to shake himself, and the words were coming as before. "For heaven's sake!" He yanked his arm free. "Little late to be stoking the fires, isn't it?"

"Apparently not. You couldn't even have put on a blanket?" He replaced the poker and retrieved his fallen blanket, wrapping it brusquely around narrow shoulders. The boy was dressed in his night shirt and loose breeches, and that was all. "Good heavens, you haven't even got shoes! What were you doing, wandering around in the dark?"

"Mice get around very well in the dark," he supplied helpfully.

"You're not an actual mouse."

He tapped a finger to his lips in ponderance. "Then why does everyone keep calling me that?"

"Because," he tousled already-disheveled hair, and Mouse was too surprised to duck his hand, "it suits you. Now, why were you up, little Mouse?"

Suddenly there was awkward shyness and shrugging, and the blanket was pulled more tightly around him. "I had to…you know…" he gestured vaguely.

"Aha." Navarre had to smother a grin at the lad's embarrassment. Of all the… "And you couldn't have bothered with shoes?"

"It wasn't supposed to take a long time," Mouse explained, and even in the dim light from the lamp, his face looked a bit red. "And…I was kind of in a hurry." He jumped when Navarre's hand landed on his forehead. "What?" he asked, unsettled.

"Just making sure your fever's not coming back. Don't worry. It's only just you blushing." He didn't bother to hide the grin that time. "Now come on then. Back to bed with you. After all that was this last week, I'll not have you catching your death of cold now." Navarre picked up his lamp and the book and nudged the boy in the direction of his room.

There was a moment of quiet from the boy as they walked, followed by a deep breath. "I am sorry, you know. It wasn't my intention to be so terribly, unattractively sick. I don't get sick often, you see. Usually I'm healthy as a horse. Goliath, for instance. _There's_ a healthy horse." It was unclear whether he was bragging or pleading his case. "But anyway, when, on those rare occasions that I do take ill, it sometimes hits a bit harder than one might expect." He was quick to repeat, "But it's rare. It's _extremely_ rare." The boy could do an astonishing mix of earnest and apathetic. And what was this? An apology for being ill? What sense was there in that? Especially when he was sick with injuries he'd sustained saving Navarre's life.

He decided not to mince words. "Are you wondering if maybe I've found you to be more trouble than you're worth?"

Mouse actually faltered a step, but he caught himself and pushed open the door to his room. He didn't immediately answer. Then instead of answering at all, he asked, "Did you ask Imperius to come?"

"Get in bed," Navarre nodded at it and set down the lamp and book. Then he went and struck a flint to some kindling and set them in the fireplace. "I asked Isabeau to go and ask him. Why?" There was quiet as he set some logs on the fire. He turned.

Mouse was sitting up in bed with his knees pulled to his chest, still wearing the blanket, nodding and picking at the bedclothes that were twisted around his feet. "Did you ask him here to see if he would take me?" he asked quietly. Navarre hardly had time to reel in surprise before the boy sped on. "Because while I appreciate the thought, it's all very unnecessary. First of all, I've never been one to stay in one place very long anyway. There is a lot out there to see, after all. Fortunes to make. I'm a skilled traveler, and besides that, I make friends easily. Well, you know that. Second, Imperius is a good friend and a great man, and it takes a certain kind to stay penned up in an abbey all day praying and doing…monk things. And I have only great respect for that, but…" he winced a bit, "I think I may drive him to drink."

Navarre stared. It would almost have been comical except for all about it that was not. How callous had he been that the boy would assume almost immediately that Navarre would ask so soon to be rid of him? He remembered with shame the times he'd brushed the boy off or silenced him with a sharp word or look. And each time, Mouse had looked utterly unsurprised.

Navarre stood from his kneeling position by the fireplace and walked to the bed. Took the blanket from around the still-shivering shoulders and nudged him gently. Mouse scrambled back against the pillows, and Navarre pulled the bedclothes over him, adding the extra blanket for good measure, his movements deft and sure, and all the while, Mouse staring at him with eyes as round as wagon wheels. As soon as the boy was situated to his liking, Navarre grasped the bony shoulders and stared intently into the brown eyes. "No," he said firmly.

Mouse's eyes were jumpy, his body tense, and if Navarre had to guess, the lad had already figured five different escape routes. He gave an uneasy, conciliatory smile. "Uh. All right then. That is to say, I wouldn't mind spending some time with the old man. After all, he came all this way, and wouldn't it be rude to…"

"No, Mouse." The uneasy smile faltered beneath Navarre's gaze. And how to say all what he had to say? There suddenly seemed a great lot of it, and he found his tongue sticking on all the important parts. Mouse shrugged a bit, surreptitiously testing Navarre's grip, and Navarre knew he needed to calm the lad. The worried eyes were beginning to look trapped. Navarre held in a sigh and patted a shoulder, standing back a bit. "May I ask you something?"

Lips thinned, eyes darting to and fro, as if the boy were suspicious of an interrogation and wondering whether or not he'd done the thing, whatever it was, of which he was about to be accused. _Oh, Mouse._ There was a tilt of the head before he answered very cautiously, "…Yes?"

Navarre picked the book up off the chair and held it up. "Is this what you were after before? In the library?"

He watched as the boy searched through what were surely some cloudy memories. "Did I break something?" he asked. The hint of worry was made to look like curiosity, and may have been missed if the boy hadn't been so nervous already.

"Nothing of import," Navarre dismissed it and pulled the chair closer to the bed to sit down. "Only I would like to know why you were reaching for this particular tome. Do you remember?"

"Oh. Ah." Mouse ducked his head and pointed at nothing. "That. Well. I was very…"

"Fever-brained?" Navarre supplied.

"Thank you, that. Yes. Um…hm." He gave a small laugh and scratched his head and looked embarrassed. "Who's to say what I was thinking at the time? Could have been I thought the book was a golden-haired damsel that needed rescuing and the ladder a high, guarded tower. I become very gallant in the throes of a good fever…"

"Mouse," Navarre asked, "do you know what this book is?"

Eyebrows rose slightly, and the boy stole a quick glance at the cover. His fingers began scrunching the fabric of the blanket nervously. But for once he did not pretend. "_The Odyssey._"

Navarre shook his head, and though he had suspected, he was still somewhat amazed. "How do you know that?"

"You told me."

"No." Navarre wouldn't be fooled. "I told you I _had_ the book. I didn't tell you where it was. There are many books in that library. How did you know it was this one?"

Mouse winced. "Lucky guess?" he tried.

"Mouse. Can you read this?"he asked directly. He had assumed the peasant boy had never had that sort of training. He'd even considered the idea of teaching him, not expecting much interest in the offer. He'd mentioned _The Odyssey_ by way of enticing the lad with an adventure tale.

The boy licked his lips, and he clearly thought he was in trouble. "A little." He paused and rushed to assure, "Not well. Not well enough for a book like that. I only know a little. Just enough to work out the title, and you had talked about it and said you might read me the story sometime, and…and…I was _very_ fever-brained and not thinking clearly, and..."

"Where on earth did you learn to read?" If Mouse had been looking at him at all, he would've seen the smile.

"I spent two solid months in a monastery once. It had a library." He let that sink in. "Of course, they didn't _know_ I was staying in their monastery, and most of the books were in Latin, and they _never_ would've had a book like that, but…" he shrugged and looked as though he wasn't sure he should be boasting or apologizing. "I guess I was able to pick up a few things." His eyes widened and lips pursed. "Don't tell Imperius."

"Incredible." Navarre realized that beyond the fact that Mouse didn't know who his mother was and some other vague, unpleasant clues, he had no knowledge at all of what the boy's past had been like. How many other little surprises were there? "That's really quite impressive. I've known a very few thieves who would have bothered to learn a skill like that."

"Well then they're not very good thieves," Mouse dismissed them and told Navarre, almost scolding, "You never pass up learning a skill today when for all you know it could save your life tomorrow," as though quoting a commandment. Then Mouse narrowed his eyes. "How many thieves _have_ you known?" And curiously enough, it sounded more like insecurity than anything else. Like perhaps Navarre collected thieves and Mouse wasn't a special case at all.

"None quite like you," he assured with a grin. "So let me understand this one thing, though: you left your sickbed, dizzy with fever and muddled of thought, to retrieve this book…so that I might read it to you?"

The boys arms wrapped around himself, more defensive than in deference to the cold. "I never said you had to read it to me."

"But then, if you'd already surmised it was too difficult for you to read on your own, then what did you plan on doing with it?"

"I wasn't planning anything." And he fell back on what seemed like his new favorite excuse. "_Fever_."

Navarre nodded amiably. "Do you know what this tale is about, Mouse?"

"Only what you told me." He leaned forward a bit. "A clever man named Odysseus is trying to get home to his wife and son after a great war, but he gets caught in a whole host of adventures with monsters and creatures and all those sorts of things on the way."

"Good memory." He hadn't thought the boy had been paying attention. He got the feeling that Mouse paid much more attention than he let on. "Yes." He tapped the leather cover of the book. "You see, a lot of terrible things happen to Odysseus. His very _name_ means 'Trouble.' Some of those things weren't his own fault at all, but some of them were. In addition to being clever, Odysseus was arrogant and blind."

"He fought all those monsters while he was _blind_?" The boy sounded impressed. And a bit worried.

Navarre spared a fleeting grin. "Not physically blind. His arrogance sometimes caused him to make rash, short-sighted, foolish decisions that ended up hurting him and keeping him away from his family even longer."

"Oh." Mouse didn't seem to understand where this was going, but that didn't seem to bother him either. "So does he make it? In the end?"

"Wouldn't that spoil the book for you?"

"I just think it would be a very terrible story if he never makes it home. Even if he's not all the time fully heroic."

"I'm inclined to agree with you. It takes him a long time. Far too long. But eventually he ends up where he was meant to be."

Mouse smiled a bit and leaned back against the pillows. "That sounds like a wonderful story." Then he frowned. Then he looked apprehensive and a bit accusatory. "Wait, is that…? What is that; are you being allegorical?"

Navarre raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected the boy to be so sharp. "I suppose I am."

Then Mouse looked hurt. Just for a moment. And then it transitioned into embarrassment, and then that was covered over, too. "Thank you," he said dutifully. "I understand. Navarre, it wasn't my intention to stay so long. Thank you for providing care while I was ill. I can be gone tomorrow at first light."

Navarre blinked. Because surely he'd misheard. "I'm sorry, come again?"

"I'm like Odysseus." As though he were reciting back something Navarre had said. "I can't let foolish things stop me from finding my own way to wherever I'm meant to be. No matter how long it takes. I understand." Navarre stared at him open-mouthed. The boy looked down, fiddling with the blankets again. "You don't have to look so surprised," he muttered softly. "I understand…nuance and all that. I'm not always as slow as people think."

Well that was just…Navarre couldn't even put words to what that was. Mouse thought Navarre was simply and ever-so-politely ejecting him from his property and his life just like that? Had things really been as bad as that? He couldn't help but raise his voice a bit in his incredulity. "Were you not even here this last evening? Did you not hear what Imperius said?"

"Which part?"

"The part about _loving_ you," and he only just barely managed to avoid adding, _you fantastic little idiot._

The tousled head popped up, and he looked positively shocked. "I…Y-wuh…?" Mouse usually was much more articulate.

"Well?"

And still Mouse was reeling a bit. He shook his head, and surprisingly enough, he admitted, "I thought I was delirious," as if that were perfectly reasonable.

"You must be joking." Mouse usually told better jokes.

"No," the boy argued. And there was that furrow-browed, contradictory look and a raised index finger. "No. Because then I fell asleep, and when I woke again, Isabeau and Imperius were there, and they were acting…just the same as always. And you can't…if that were true, then wouldn't they have been…? Things would've been different." He didn't sound completely sure.

"Different how?"

"How should I know? But people don't…they don't say such things and then go on as if everything were plain and normal."

"You expected some kind of ceremony?" Navarre raised an eyebrow.

He scowled. "I didn't _expect_ it at all."

"What should change then? If such a thing were true, if they _do_ in fact love you, how would you imagine things to be different?"

Mouse gestured helplessly, still caught somewhere between convinced and uncertain. "Then they would tell me how I'm supposed to be different than what I am. For my own good." The last bit sounded darker than the rest.

Navarre had no hope of following that. "How are you supposed to be different?"

"I don't _know_. If I knew _that_, I wouldn't be…" He stopped short, surprised at himself, and there was something fast approaching fear in his eyes.

And there it was. "Alone?" Navarre hazarded, and it was hardly a guess. Mouse wouldn't look at him. "In case you hadn't noticed, little Mouse…you aren't." Brown eyes slowly raised and blinked at him several times. And this was the amazing young thief, the one they called Phillipe the Mouse, the only man alive ever to escape the prisons of Aquila, and certainly the only one to sneak back in. And he sat there, still weak from sickness, looking in the dim light entirely like the child he, in many ways, still was.

Hope made people vulnerable. Navarre knew that better than most. And there Mouse sat, trying like mad not to hope, terrified to expose his vulnerability. He was too young, Navarre thought. Too young to convince himself he did not need a family.

"_I_ am Odysseus," Navarre said with quiet conviction that froze Mouse where he sat. "_I_ am the one who has been foolish and rash and short-sighted. _You_," he poked Mouse gently on the front of his shoulder, ever mindful of the healing wounds on his chest, "are home. Listen well. You are loved, little Mouse. Exactly as you are. And I am sorry that the way I have acted has convinced you otherwise. I am sorry that it has taken me this long to get here."

The brown eyes were intense, and the boy gave a sudden, painful swallow, staring at Navarre, and he could not speak. It seemed all he could do to breathe.

"You are, as Isabeau said, my family. As surely as if you were brother or son. And in my foolishness, I fought that. Because," he paused and had to steady himself, "I have lost one brother already due to my own carelessness. And I know too well the pain rendered by such a loss. It's the reason I foolishly tried to pretend you were less to me than that. As if, should something happen to you, I could find comfort in the distance. I know now that was only stupidity, and the most selfish kind. We were already connected, you and I. The day we met, I was convinced the Lord Himself had placed you in my path, and I am more convinced now than then. I cannot promise I will never disappoint you. If only I could. But I can promise my protection, guidance, and provision for as long as you'll allow me the honor." It felt good get it out. To have it spoken and to be done with it. It felt good until he looked into that young face.

Navarre wasn't sure what he expected. He'd mostly been concerned over whether he would be able to get any of the words out at all and if they'd be in any cohesive order. He'd hardly thought over what he expected from Mouse. As it was, the boy looked positively…panic-stricken.

Mouse's breathing had sped up, and he was looking at him almost like Navarre had just declared he wanted to murder him in some ghastly fashion rather than make him a part of his family. He felt suddenly uncertain. What if this wasn't what Mouse wanted at all? What if Navarre had only assumed? What if he was again a victim of his own arrogance?

"Is that," Navarre asked tentatively, "all right?"

The boy only shook his head. No. A final, comprehensive _no._

"Oh," Navarre nodded, and the initial surprise was not even as surprising as the sudden hurt he felt at the rejection. "Well." And what else was there to say? Of course. The damage had already been done. He'd pushed his young friend away too many times and now likely sounded like a babbling madman. He swallowed and slowly stood. "I can understand that," he said, and it was unreasonably difficult. "Thank you for hearing me. I will...let the offer stand, anyway." He made it to the door, still unsteady with disappointment and embarrassment. "The sun isn't even up. You'll still need your rest," he advised hollowly without turning, and he reached for the door.

A hand caught his wrist and just as quickly let go, and Navarre turned. The boy stood there, out of bed once again, backing to a safe distance but holding out Navarre's book in one hand while the other frantically, ineffectively fisted away tears. There were _tears_ falling down his face. The small chest shook to hold back muted sobs, and brown eyes were wide, desperate and pleading, and there were _tears._ It was a heartbreaking sight. One that Navarre did not immediately understand.

"What...?"

The boy only held out that book and it seemed agony even to look up at Navarre's face. There were no words. Uncomprehending, Navarre took the worn old book and looked down at its cover. Then to the silently overwhelmed boy standing not four paces away. Mouse looked too much like ashamed, but not too ashamed to _beg_ of him to...to stop. _He doesn't want me to go, _he thought.There was hope then. And Navarre remembered. Mouse might prattle endlessly about anything under the sun. But matters that touched too closely to the heart under that scarred chest…those apparently left him mute. Navarre took a chance. "Shall we read for a bit then?" he asked quietly, and somehow his voice had gotten rough.

A small, shining smile of relief and gratefulness. Then Mouse sniffed and nodded shyly, his shoulders sagging as he let out a pent-up breath. It only took a few moments to get him back into bed and under the blankets and calmer, and on a whim, Navarre scooted him over and leaned back against the headboard next to him. He reached around the surprised boy's shoulders, drawing him close, so he could hold the book in both hands and that the words would be visible to the both of them. The way he'd done for Élie once upon a time. The way his father had done with him those rare times he hadn't realized he'd almost forgotten, back before mountains and ice. Mouse tensed for a moment at some unseen uncertainty. Navarre smiled over Mouse's head as the still-recovering young thief, all but spent and exhausted, relaxed and settled himself more comfortably against his chest. "All ready?"

Mouse nodded. "Thank you," he whispered hoarsely, and it seemed an effort to get those two words out.

"Of course, little Mouse." Impulsively, Navarre pressed a kiss to the boy's temple, and he saw moist eyelashes blinking in surprise. Then he settled in and opened the book to the first page. The story began just as he remembered. "'Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home…'"

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Isabeau was largely unconcerned when she awoke that morning and her husband was not beside her. It didn't take much effort to imagine where he had gone, and she was only curious over whether Navarre had had success in his mission.

She wrapped herself up and let her feet carry her the way to Phillipe's room. She pushed the door open slowly. Her smile was intense and immediate.

Her husband sat on top of the blankets, his back to the headboard, with head tilted back and mouth open, snoring softly. There was an expensive-looking book sitting open in his lap, its pages crinkled where his hand had hit them in his sleep. And tucked securely under one arm, there was her favorite little Mouse, burrowed snugly against his chest, features as smooth and relaxed as she'd ever seen them. She walked further into the room, her footfalls quiet. She stopped to press a kiss to her husband's face.

Winter blue eyes opened and regarded her for a moment with a plain, undiluted kind of awe. The kind of inadvertent look that made her feel absolutely treasured. Then he smiled warmly. "Good morning, my love."

"Good morning. I trust you've sorted things with your young protégé?"

He glanced down fondly at the boy bundled against his chest. "I think the important things are…at least mostly understood."

"He looks _incredibly_ asleep," she noted with a grin. And rather endearing at that. She leaned down to press a soft kiss to his head. He didn't stir a bit.

"He'd thought I wanted rid of him. Had been convinced of it, in fact."

"It seems as though you've unconvinced him." She glanced up at Navarre with a smile meant to ease the bit of distress that had entered his gaze. "He's positively angelic this way. Could it be that his mouth is closed?" she teased.

If anything, Navarre looked more somber. "Surprising as it is, I've found it much less painful when he's chattering on and on than when he cannot say a word."

Isabeau raised her eyebrows. Then she looked back at her young friend affectionately. "He's a tender little thing. He'd like to think he isn't." She thought of the utterly silent figure with a tear-stained face the day the moon blotted out the sun and she and Navarre were finally together, their torment at last replaced by boundless joy. There in the church, Mouse had had, for the first time since she'd known him, no words for the occasion. Only precious tears and an expression of wonder that could never have belonged to a heartless, honorless, indifferent criminal. "I'm going to go get breakfast together. If Imperius comes by, which I expect he will, tell him breakfast will be served in here." She thought now was as good a time to tell him as any to tell him, "I've invited him to stay for as long as he can."

Navarre's mouth twitched in an amused half smile. He knew her well and hardly had to ask her to explain her reasoning. "Good," he said, jokingly resigned. "Lord knows, we could use the prayers."

* * *

A/N: Here's an Anachronism Alert: I have no idea at what point _The Odyssey_ was translated into French. However, for the sake of this story, I'm going to say it was about at that point in history when a man was cursed to be a wolf by night and a woman a hawk by day. Heh. Shameless.

A/N Part II: Revenge of the Author's Note: You'll notice there was a bit of a happy ending here. This is not the end. Because how it could it be that easy, right?


	5. The Elusion

"Well, Lord. It is, by and large, a fine morning. I'm feeling much better. Thank You." Mouse thought for a moment and looked around his room. Well. That was about everything. Oh, but there were some hard biscuits in the kitchen. Probably no one would miss those. With that set in mind, he shouldered his small bag and headed for the bedroom door. His eyes lit on the book on the bedside table. He stopped. Feelings of guilt and regret and a surge of loss. He brushed them aside and scowled. "Well, it's not as if I have a choice. Everyone will be better off. I am a thief and a teller of tales, and I'll never be anything better. And You know that. Navarre's just…feeling sentimental. That's all. He's been through a trial. All of them have. Imperius and the lady Isabeau, too. It'll wear off."

All those things about love and family and protection and guidance. Nothing like that ever lasted. And besides, "I don't _need_ any of that." There was a teasing voice in the back of his mind that brought up the tears he'd cried and the way he'd been so weak, lost all semblance of resolve, and was so quick to crumble and lean on Navarre. To believe him. To trust him. The way he'd wanted so badly to just be safe and protected and cared for, and he'd been so, so _tired_. He'd fallen for warmth and fairy tales. Pathetic. "It was a momentary lapse," he grumbled. "I was _ill_. I've always been better on my own." He glanced upward and quickly amended, very diplomatically, "Not counting You of course, Lord. You're always invited along."

With that, Mouse stuck his head out the door, checking both ways. He'd have to be a bit sneaky. He was supposed to be napping. If anyone saw him packed to leave, there might be questions, and that would be uncomfortable for everyone. As it was, no one saw him slip into the kitchen and tuck the biscuits and some dried currants into his bag.

He had to duck into a cupboard to avoid a muttering Imperius, listening as the old man blustered good-naturedly to himself about nothing in particular.

As soon as Mouse realized there was a fond smile pulling at his lips, he quickly scrubbed it off. No, he wasn't attached. No, not at all. He waited for the monk to be on his way before he crept out of the cupboard and stole outside by way of an old servant's entrance.

The servant's access was the best exit. There were sixteen feasible points at which to leave the manor. He thought he could stretch it to nineteen in a pinch, but as far as accessibility and covertness, the small wooden door tucked into the stone wall outside the kitchen couldn't be beat. The door wasn't heavy and loud like the main entrance or some of the others, and it didn't require scaling any walls or rappelling off of anything. And it certainly didn't require him to crawl through mud or swim through a creek. Basically, it was simple. Easy. And there he was. Outside. Alone.

A chilling wind blew through his hair, turning his arms to gooseflesh and making him shiver. There was a single, fleeting image cast before his eyes. Of a fire and a warm supper and Isabeau's ethereal smile and Imperius's bellowing laugh and Navarre trying and failing to look unamused. He felt warmer for that moment. And then he stepped out, away from gray bricks and everything inside that was not gray. He stepped out, where the wind was free to have its way with him, cut through to his bones, and this was what he wanted. Unequivocally. It was what he knew, and there was no reason whatsoever to believe he was colder now than he ever had been before. Unless it was only some lingering effects of his illness.

"Yes, that's probably it. Must be." So Mouse wrapped his arms tightly around himself and set his pace to a steady gait, slower than a jog because he was recovering after all. "It's a wonderful thing, being out in the country. A man alone with his thoughts. Free to go where he pleases. There's adventure in it. Romance. Excitement and danger and endless possibilities." He grinned, focused on the possibilities of the open land in front of him, pushing back all the naysaying thoughts still trying to claw their way in.

Mouse always liked to travel. He liked not knowing what he would find. Even if what he found was too often trouble. He liked to meet new people and see new things, hear new stories and make up new ones of his own. And yes, sometimes it meant he was cold, and sometimes it meant he was hungry. But it was worth it because he always thought if he just kept moving, that someday he would find something. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. But he knew he'd never find it holed up in a previously-enchanted knight's stone manor.

There was a small village some miles to the east that he thought he could make before dark. He felt confident he could find someplace to sleep indoors there and something warm to fill his stomach.

"I feel good about this." And a few steps later, "I do." And almost a mile after that, perhaps slightly peevishly, "Lord, sometimes I get the feeling You're looking at me with some sort of expression. And I really wish You would stop."

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It was amazing the feeling one got when _everything_ had finally been put into its rightful place. He'd been reunited with his love, and nothing could tear them apart. He'd restored his friendship with the monk he'd been sure he'd never trust again. He'd laid old demons to rest. His young friend would live and soon would be back to bothering and teasing and learning, perhaps for the first time, what it was to be part of a family.

Navarre's life seemed, for that single precarious moment, to be something akin to perfect as he curried Goliath's coat with quick, circular strokes. At least as close to perfect as one's life could be. There were still dangers and worries and duties. But those were secondary things. The important things were all laid in a row, neat and tidy and safe.

"Navarre?" Isabeau's voice came from the door to the stable.

"Yes, love?"

"Is Mouse out here with you?"

"Mouse?" He repeated the name like she'd told a joke. "He's still confined to bed." Then he paused. He set his brush aside and left the stall to find his wife standing barefoot at the door. "He's not in bed, then?"

Isabeau pressed her lips together and shook her head, eyebrows high, almost managing to look more exasperated than worried. "It seems he has escaped."

Oh, for the love…"Where's Imperius?"

"Inside, searching the rooms a second time," she said unhappily. "He's not there. He must be on the grounds somewhere. Brash little devil."

"Why would Mouse be out roaming the grounds?"

"I don't know. But I'm not forgiving him until we find him." She sniffed proudly. Then she gave up and let her worry show as she reached out a hand for him. He took it. "Do you think his fever might have come back?"

Navarre led his wife back toward the great house. "I think it's more likely you'll catch death yourself skipping about without shoes. Come on. We'll ask him when we find him. He won't have gone far." There was a sinking feeling, however, that he had no idea what Mouse would do. His discomfited thoughts moved to his belly, causing his stomach to shift in uneasy waves.

Life, it seemed, was not a beast so easily tamed.

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It took a moment for consciousness to begin weaving itself together, longer for it to form anything that approached a coherent tapestry. The first thing Mouse knew with any amount of certainty was that it was too warm. Hot even. And that didn't seem right because last he remembered, it had been late winter. There had been melting snow and ice and uncomfortable cold. But now the only thing that was uncomfortable was the heavy, stifling heat. Maybe he'd slept a long time. Maybe it was already summer.

The second thing he knew was the sharp, nauseating pain at the base of his skull. He didn't know what he'd done, but whatever it was…he regretted it.

He was lying face down on rough boards, and he dragged a hand up to rub his splitting head, heaving in a sharp breath. The moment he inhaled, it was like he was breathing in the fiery embers of the Abyss. Smoke and soot and hot, hot air that burned up his insides, and all he could do was cough and sputter and clutch at his chest.

Mouse pushed himself blearily up onto his elbows. The pain and the heat weren't enough to really alarm him, curiously enough. The thing that finally pressed panic into his muddled brain and had him blinking scratchy, watering eyes open was the sound. A roar and a crackling. Like bacon sizzling on a frying pan or rain falling in large drops or a hundred other things that it was not. And the instant he realized he _knew_ that sound was the instant his heart leapt up and gagged him.

He was lying under a broken table. And all around him, there was fire.


	6. The Fire

Isabeau watched her husband as they rode. Lilou, her bay-coated Auvergne mare kept up all right, but she was all but dwarfed by Navarre's Goliath. Still, it gave her a pristine view of Navarre's grim-set face. It was that look he wore that she hated to see more than any other. The look of _nothingness._ Anger, sadness, pain, remorse—all were preferable in their own way to this meticulously molded expression. If indeed it could be called an expression at all. Expressions expressed. This—this whatever-it-was—did not. It gave nothing away. As if Navarre were a soulless statue rather than a man capable of such courage and love and feeling as ever existed.

"You're doing that thing with your face," she told him directly and pulled her riding hood more snugly against her shoulders. The air was chilly. It was the sort of thing she didn't usually notice when she was with him.

He didn't answer. It could very well be he hadn't heard.

Isabeau sighed. That stone-carved face was the one her love wore in her nightmares, when her vision was sharpest. When she had the vague impressions of feathered, unwieldy not-hands and tethered talons where feet should be. During those dark years, when in her human form, at that moment between night and day, she'd seen and recognized his crushing despair, felt it echoed in her heart. But it was her animal mind that had recorded _this_ phenomenon, and that perhaps was why it haunted her. When the tempestuous blue eyes turned to stolid, still-standing water.

Isabeau had seen dead men. Men dead both from slow sickness and from quick, fatal blows. The ones who'd died quickly had eyes that retained their sharpness, faces that reflected their surprise or the fierceness of their fight. But the ones who'd died slowly from age or disease all had the same weary grayness to their eyes. As though they'd felt every blow from the hammer that chiseled their life away and it _exhausted_ them. Navarre, Isabeau had thought, had had two years feeling life's hammer chisel away at his hope.

_But that isn't what it is; is it, my love? Not precisely._ No. What Navarre had had was practice. Practice burying his hope so deep that nothing, not even life's hammer, could touch it. Not life's hammer. And not Navarre himself. But the thing about hope is that one cannot bury it by itself. When hope is buried, joy is buried. Light and life and color are buried. And one is left with the gray, weary eyes of a dead man.

It had taken them an embarrassing length of time to realize Mouse's things were gone. The boy had such meager few possessions his room hardly looked any emptier for their absence. Navarre had looked up with the realization, up at nothing, and there had been betrayal and embarrassment and worry and fear and determination and anger and _more _determination. Then he'd made a grinding motion with his jaw, and all of that began to drain away, down into the bilges of his being where she thought he must store all these things. And in its wake the nothing-face from her nightmares.

He'd said, "He's gone away." He'd said it like he wasn't talking to anyone.

"Why?" she'd asked. "Why would he do that?"

He hadn't answered. Only he'd gone and readied his horse, and it was all Isabeau could do to keep up. She'd left a worried Imperius behind should Mouse return and followed her ominously stoic husband. They'd set out at a clip. But over the course of their journey, their pace had gradually slowed.

"I can only trust you know where we're going," she said by way of conversation, and she already knew not to expect any reply. Sometimes it was best to leave him be until he was ready.

It was that moment Navarre pulled Goliath up short without any warning. "Maybe we should go back." He was hardly looking at her. And at last she at least could sense his turmoil. At last she could see something roiling behind the blue eyes. And even if it was difficult, it was still much preferred over the nothingness.

"Go back? Back where? Do you think we've gone the wrong way?"

His voice was hard. "I think perhaps it was wrong that we set out after him at all."

She blinked, disbelieving. "Why would you say that? You couldn't mean it."

His voice was hard and his eyes wouldn't look at her, and both were signs he wasn't sure whether he was lying or not. "Of course I mean it. He left. By his choice. What good is it to chase after him now?"

"That's just it. We don't know _why_ he left." Something like guilt flashed across the blue eyes in an instant. Isabeau regarded him carefully. "Or at least _I_ don't."

"If he wants to be free of us, then we should let him be!"

"Why on earth should he want free of us? What do you know? What is it that you're not telling me? Navarre, Mouse loves us. He's seen us both at our very worst, and he didn't run screaming; what more proof could there be? He loves being part of a family. More than that, I think he needs us. Tell me you aren't about abandoning him now."

"Me abandon him? _He left_, Isabeau. Can't you understand that?"

"I can't. I was under the assumption that you couldn't either. So tell me what it is that you _understand_. You'd said you'd settled things with him."

He made a short frustrated sound, as if he were more confounded than heartbroken, and shook his head. "I thought I had. I told him…I told him he was loved and that he was as family to me. And he just shook his head no. No. But then he didn't want me to go, and I thought…I thought he was only overwhelmed. And I suppose he was. Overwhelmed at my foolishness, and he didn't know how to tell me. He even told me he would leave; before any of what I'd said, he'd told me he was a traveler, and that was the life he'd chosen. He doesn't want me, Isabeau. He doesn't want any of us. He's a loner, and it's by his design."

"A loner? The boy who has learned to talk to _himself_ because he's so unused to anyone apart from the Lord above listening to him? The boy who followed you into his own personal hell only days after meeting you? The boy who danced with me just to see me smile when I had begun to think all hope was lost? The boy who will stay up late into the night listening to Imperius's stories only because the sweet old man has had no one to talk to in far too long? _That_ boy is a loner? That's a boy who _chooses_ to be lonely?" She shook her head. "I don't believe it. I won't believe it. I don't know why he left, but I will certainly not operate under any supposition that he wants free of the only family he has." She took a deep breath and let it out through her nose, pressing her lips together and waiting until he looked at her. "You two are more alike than you know. So insecure. So unwilling to believe that anyone could ever love you."

"This has nothing to do with my insecurities! If it _were_ true, if he were not put off by what I said, then he wouldn't have stolen away in secret like a…"

"Like a thief?" she asked quietly, and it was enough to quiet his tongue. She looked at him, and her affection was great. "My dearest one, you haven't considered that perhaps that is all he knows how to do?"

He looked at her, startled for a moment. Then he swallowed, breathing slowly through his open mouth, his brow creasing with the realization.

"The moment you realized you loved that boy, your first instinct was to distance yourself from it," she said, and not without sympathy. "Can you fault Philippe for being even better at distancing himself from his feelings than you are?"

Navarre blinked several times. "You think…?"

"I do."

He looked at her a long time. And his face expressed things. Worry, uncertainty, humility, gratitude. Then he spurred Goliath on, and their pace was quickened as it had been at the start, his sureness of purpose restored even if perhaps he still worried what they'd find at the end of their journey. She smiled a bit to herself. Navarre hadn't the ability to abandon this quest. Even if he had turned back, even if he feared Mouse had no use for him whatsoever and would reject him soundly, his worry over the young trouble magnet would have allowed him no rest until he at least was assured of the boy's safety.

It was a funny thing, the heart. The very thing that left a man vulnerable also gave him strength. The very thing that supplied endless doubt also gave means for unyielding resolution.

"Does it bother you to think you married a fool?" Navarre asked after a spell.

"I wouldn't know; I've never had reason to think it," she said with put-on, high-held severity. "And I would thank you to watch your tongue, sir, if you wish to keep it. I will not abide anyone speaking ill of my husband. Not even you."

She felt more than saw his small, fond smile. "Apologies, Milady."

LADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKELADYHAWKE

It was in the span of an orange-flame-tinted, smoke-hazed second that Mouse remembered how he'd got to where he'd gotten.

After a day of traveling, the tavern had looked entirely warm and inviting when it finally came into view, and the only things he wanted in the world were hot food in his stomach and a nice, straw mattress for the night. He'd been forced to admit at sometime past noon that he wasn't all up to snuff since his latest brush with death.

His limbs were achy, and the cold had leeched into his chest. His nose was runny, his skin felt clammy and tight and uncomfortable, his muscles were tired and heavy, and the scabs on his chest itched something fierce. The moment he'd stepped inside the door and was hit with the warmth from the huge stone fireplace and the smell of pork and potatoes and onions and barley bread and beans and some kind of fruit tart, he nearly sang praises to the heavens. As it was, he winked up at the Lord, ran his sleeve under his nose, and tried to look all-knowing and charming and like he belonged.

There were long plank tables with rough-hewn benches for the everyman, filled with raucous men kicking back and drinking and laughing loudly, and he sauntered by them with upturned nose to the comparatively nicer round tables at the head of the room closest to the fireplace. He found his way up to an empty table and sat, holding in a blissful groan that wanted to escape at the pure ecstasy it was just to be off his feet, and he waited patiently when all he wanted to do was run back to the kitchen and snatch something to put in his growling stomach. He'd learned a long time ago that patience was a virtue. If you act like a beggar people treat you like a beggar. Better to convince people that you're someone worth serving. And besides, when people think you have plenty, they're less likely to watch their valuables as closely.

He noticed a girl serving drinks and looking a bit harassed. Petite and smudged with hard work and constantly blowing strands of dark hair that had fallen loose from their ribbon tie out of her face. An unintentional elbow from a staggering patron upended the tray in her hands, sending mugs of ale splashing over the floor. No one paid any mind when a man, her employer, grabbed her roughly by the wrist and shouted something rude and degrading at her. Mouse saw her slight flinch. He knew that sort of flinch well. Knew what it was when your vision went white for a split second and your body shuddered in on itself because all your muscles and bones had learned well what kind of pain to expect when someone larger started shouting that way. The man didn't hit her. But he had before. There could be little doubt of that. She kept her gaze meekly lowered, but her answering voice was steady, and the man let her go back to her duties. She was left on her knees alternately gathering mugs and rubbing her wrist.

Mouse watched all this quietly from his seat. Her eyes found him across the room. It was impossible to tell how old she was. She could've been as young as he was. She could've been a decade older or more. It was usual for her type to dismiss him out of hand as she was used to being dismissed. But she saw him in a seat meant for someone of higher quality than he, and there was intelligence and warning in her eyes. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. _Not a good idea, whatever you're doing there._

Mouse liked her immediately. He bowed his head to her with a brash smile. _Good ideas are overrated._

He leaned back in his chair, arms on armrests. Sure enough, it wasn't long before a low, gravelly voice sounded behind him. "I believe you've found the wrong seat, boy."

Mouse tilted his head back to look at the man. The same man who had no qualms about abusing a young lady in his employ. Obviously he was the owner, and obviously this tavern left him well enough off. His clothes fit well on his broad frame, and even if he was no handsome prince, he was well fed, and everyone within earshot was looking at them with baited breath fearing or anticipating a scene. Mouse smiled broadly.

"Is that so, my good man?" he asked lazily. His ability to sound superior and educated was one of his best tricks. "Well, I do apologize. It's so hard to know one's place these days. Tell me, my greasy friend, will this about cover it?" He reached into his pouch. He still had some money, and he slapped four coins on the table. Easily double or even triple what a meal and a room would cost. It was all he had left, but no one else knew that. He hadn't planned on running a con. But what could he do having found such a suitable mark? _Sorry, Lord. But I do expect You saw this coming._

The man didn't answer. Clearly he hadn't expected that. Clearer still he didn't like it.

Mouse raised his voice. "A plate of whatever passes as your finest fare and something to drink, please. And double pay to any man here who can liven up this dead place with some music!" Shouts went up as happy men scrambled for something to be used as an instrument. One man had a flute, another a dilapidated violin, and they began playing lively, uncoordinated melodies while other men used spoons and mugs to tap out unsteady if enthusiastic rhythms on the wood tables. Satisfied, Mouse looked up at the glowering tavern owner. He shooed the man off with a wave of the hand. "Off you go."

The man stretched a suddenly stiff neck, obviously wondering what exactly Mouse _was_ but too afraid that perhaps Mouse really did have some high station and could do him harm to ask. In the end, he swiped up the money and went away, and it was very easy to embarrass men like that.

Short moments later, there was a bruised wrist setting food and drink before him. "You ain't come from around here," she said, just loud enough for him to hear over the music. "What might I call you, Milord?"

"You could call me the Pied Piper for all my capacity for attracting the attention of rats." He jutted his chin in the direction of the tavern owner. "Seems to me it's high time that one was led to the river."

She raised a pointed eyebrow. "Weren't the Pied Piper the villain in the story?"

"If he was, he was misrepresented," Mouse dismissed the idea.

"Way I heard it told, he ended up leading all the children away. Causing misery and ruin to all the townsfolk."

"Ah." He held up a finger. "He led the children away from their _parents," _he corrected. "Who, according to the story, were dishonest, cheating abusers. No, no, all the songs and poems have it wrong. I'm sure he _rescued_ the children. Valiantly. And led all of them to a new life free of rats and neglect and violence. Of course the _parents_ condemned his methods. They had to in order to cover their own liability. It's all a matter of perspective, you see."

Under grime and sweat and work, her brown eyes sparkled with amusement that tugged the corners of her lips. It was an indulgent, almost-smile that reminded him suddenly and painfully of Isabeau. Mouse realized this girl would've been lovely if she'd been allowed to be.

"Well," she said. "I would say good luck to you then, O valiant little Piper. But I wouldn't try my tune here 'f I were you. The rats might follow you to the river, but they're like as not to drown _you_ 'stead of the other way around."

"Well, thank you," he said back with all kinds of impressive confidence. "But I like to think I'm a pretty strong swimmer."

It was a risky con, but not one he hadn't pulled before. The raucous music led to dancing, which was usually the case, and the resulting chaos always added good cover. He went around, endearing himself to the tavern patrons, telling unlikely stories, and lifting coins off giggling, liquored-up men he'd then redistribute to them cheerily and publicly to wild applause. It was funny how people could be so riotously happy to receive their own stolen money.

When he had everyone pretty well convinced that he was the most generous stranger ever to grace their presence, he began stowing the coins he swiped. And when he'd amassed quite a purse, it was a simple thing to cry thief. He'd accuse the surly tavern owner with no basis of proof whatsoever, and the drunken masses who'd sworn their loyalty to Mouse in their grateful stupor would rough the tavern man up until they realized he was innocent. It was poor justice for an abused tavern girl, but it was something and all he could do. And at least the man, sore from his own beating, would likely not bother hitting her for awhile. Besides that, Mouse could leave her a few coins that might give her more options before he left in the morning for a bigger town.

It worked almost perfectly. Except for when the owner grabbed him in a fit of strangled rage. It wouldn't have been so bad. He had the drunkards to come to his aid after all. But there was the lamp knocked off its base in the struggle. There was the flame that caught in a pool of dribbled whiskey and raced along rivers of spilled ale. There were shouts and rushing, and all at once the fire was overwhelming. Men were running, and everything was very suddenly desperate. Mouse tried to run. The fists gripped into his shirt shook him hard, and he couldn't hear what the tavern owner said over all the shouting and the flames. But he saw anger and eyes that reflected fire, and when he was thrown he crashed into a table, and his skull cracked into surprisingly solid craftsmanship. After that, all there was left was to wake up.

And he had.

Mouse blinked his tearing eyes, peering through smoke. He pushed himself to a crouching position, and somehow every part of him ached. He coughed, and it hurt _so much_. "Is anyone there?" he called weakly.

There was no one. He was alone.

"Well, Lord," he said around his scratchy throat. "It appears we have a face-to-face meeting on the ledger for tonight. Sorry, I wasn't aware." It hurt to breathe. He looked around, fear pulling him past pain, pulling him past everything that wasn't _surviving_. His heart thudded heavily in his chest, pounding in his temples. Flames surrounded him. There was no way to a door, to a window, that wasn't blocked by walls of fire. He flinched and fought not to scream as a ceiling beam fell and crashed into the floor too near where he was. "I'm afraid I don't look my best. I'll have to ask to be excused from that meeting, if You please." And silently, _Help me, Lord; help me, Lord; please help me!_

It was a miracle he hadn't burned in his sleep. Surely he hadn't woken up just to be cooked now.

He looked around wildly, for some way. Any way. There was only fire. Fire that burned everything. _Fire. Fire…that's it._ He looked at the great stone fireplace. Fireplaces didn't burn. Fireplaces were _designed_ not to burn. And it was close. It was so close. He heaved the table-top he'd been lying under on top of the flames that blocked his path and hurriedly skipped over it. He grabbed a poker from the rack by the hearth and speared out the burning wood inside the fireplace, kicking it away.

Mouse ducked into the cramped space. It was hot. Like an oven. And the air was bad. His arms and legs and chest were already feeling heavy, trying to convince him to just curl up and sleep. That he'd be fine if he could just sleep for a minute more. If he could sleep, all this would go away, and maybe he would wake up and be back at Navarre's manor, and everything would be...

_No._ If he fell asleep, he would die. There was nothing else but that. There was no Navarre and no safety and no _home._ None of that was real. A man could die from bad air as quick as he could from a fire if not quicker. That's what was real. He blinked rapidly his weighty eyelids and coughed. _Come on, Mouse. Come on, Mouse._ He looked up where stones rose up along the narrow chimney. Just up there, through clouds of smoke, he thought he could see the stars. _Come on, you can do it._

The bricks were rough and hot and tore at the blistering pads of his fingers.

"This will be fine. It'll be just like Aquila," he thought optimistically. Then he remembered how Aquila was _terrible_. And it at least hadn't been on fire.


End file.
